


Baby steps still move you forward

by Tabata



Series: Leoverse [269]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 18:28:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28942953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabata/pseuds/Tabata
Summary: After the Assignment Leo was expecting to start his new life with Blaine, but the man doesn't seem interested in him at all.
Relationships: Blaine Anderson/Original Male Character(s)
Series: Leoverse [269]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/30541





	Baby steps still move you forward

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [B'shert](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23197837) by [lisachan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lisachan/pseuds/lisachan). 



> **WARNING:** This story is an **AU** from the original 'verse. What happens in here has little to none correlation with what happens in Leonard Karofsky-Hummel VS The world or Broken Heart Syndrome. The characters involved are (mostly) the same, but situations and relationships between them may be completely different.  
> In this specific instance of the universe, the characters live in a City that's ruled by a Council of Wisemen. Their Ancestors, following the principle that no one should ever walk alone as loneliness is the thing from which crime, sadness, sickness stem, wrote a Book of the Law that dictates that to every person should be assigned another person, the name of whom will be suggested by the Gods, with which they're supposed to be spending the rest of their life. And this all works fine and well, of course, until a tragedy, known as the Thundering, strikes the city, and many, many people in their prime lose their Soulmates. Which must then be replaced.
> 
> Written for:  
> Maritombola #11 - Decreto Ristopunti  
>  _prompt (s)_ : The story must begin with something happening that the main character wasn't expecting to ever happen. In the story a bisexual character must be present. One of the warnings must be "Fluff". The story must be between 2000 and 2999 words.

No one is to be left alone.

Leo grew up with those words repeated over and over at every given prayer, every speech, every casual greeting in the street, at every meeting of the congregation. Those seven words are plastered everywhere around the city, like a giant admonition wherever you go — a reminder, like the Wisemen like to call it.

And apparently even here in this house, supposedly his new home.

_No one is to be left alone – Oracle of Balance, 2:1-5_ written in black letters on the stark white wall over the fireplace in the living room. He feels like those words are mocking him now and have been doing that since the moment he took his first step into the house a few days ago.

All his life he's been essentially taught two things. One, society is balance. And balance is knowing your place in society. Two, people are not meant to be alone, because people on their own throw the balance off. That is why you are assigned a soulmate, a person chosen for his compatible characteristic that will be your perfect companion for the rest of your life.

Now, Leo doesn't know what his place in society is yet. He's still studying – general education, nothing specific – and he's not supposed to know what he wants to be until next year, when he will be required to make a choice. He's thinking to be a Record Keeper, by the way, not that anybody in this house – say, his husband – ever asked. What he _did_ know, instead, was that, during his Assignment, he was going to be paired up with his perfect match. He practically lived his life with the absolute certainty that it was going to happen.

Even when the Thundering threw the whole system off and so many people died that the Wisemen were forced to involve many more widows and widowers than usual, Leo still knew that he was supposed to be with someone that was meant to be with him – maybe that person was also meant to be with someone else before him, but that was okay. It was just a little bothersome, to be honest, but still logic, still perfectly in line with what he was taught to believe.

Even when his best friend Adam's Assignment turned out to be such a spectacularly complicated affair – with Jesse loving Adam but being angry because he did and yet still wanting him – Leo remained positive that it was the natural order of things for him to be given the right person to share his life with. It didn't even matter if it was a boy or a girl, it had never made much difference to him, anyway. He wasn't picky, he had double the chances and he was just very ready to take them.

So the last thing he was expecting was for the guy not to want him.

Blaine Anderson is one of the Magistrates, which means he is one of the very few next in line to become a Wiseman some day. It is a very important job with a lot of perks and responsibilities, but for the sake of Leo's mental conversation with himself, is basically reduced to the fact that this man is never home. And even when he is, it's like Leo didn't even exist. Leo's got his own quarters, his own portion of the garden. He's not even allowed to dine with him.

No matter how he looks at the situation, it seems like Blaine underwent the Assignment because he _had_ to and then, once it was done, he disposed of the burden that came from it in the only way he could without being arrested. At this point Leo doesn't know if this say worse of him or the Assignment process.

He's in the middle of his usual daily contemplation of the shitty rest of his life when the intercom beeps several times. Blaine's intercom is nothing like the one he had in his old home – a mess of cables that he needed to move from room to room if he ever hoped to hear it ringing – but one of the fancy ones, with a white elegant cubic speaker in every room, and he only needs to speak out loud to vocally activate it.

“Hello?”

“Ah! I was hoping to find you home,” Adam voice comes loud and clear out of the box. If his best friend in the flesh wasn't the mouthwatering guy that he is, it would almost be like having him here in the living room.

“It's not like I've anywhere else to go,” Leo mutters, lying down on the sofa. It is weirdly satisfying to place his feet on the cream colored armrest where he was explicitly told not to place them. Small blessing. “So, how's marriage life treating you?”

“No,” which, in truth, is already a good answer, “I called _you_ exactly to avoid the subject of my complicate situation. Now it's your turn to spill the beans.”

“Is Jesse still aggressively loving you?”

“He cusses at me every time he gets too close.”

“Oh, man...” Leo is genuinely sorry for him. In his opinion, Adam deserves the best in love too, having already the best friend he could hope for.

“At least he doesn't kick me anymore. I call it progress,” Leo can hear him shrug through his voice. “Anyway, enough about me. Beans. I want beans!”

Leo huffs. “I don't have any beans to spill. I basically never see him. He leaves for work at dawn and he made very clear that he doesn't even want to see me, thus my bedroom strategically placed on the other side of this humongous house. Even if I wanted to welcome him home when he comes back, by the time I had crossed the whole house to reach the door, he would be already in bed.”

“But do you want to welcome him when he comes home?”

“I might! But it's a little bit hard to understand if I like him or not if I'm not allowed to be with him.”

Adam sighs. “You're not wrong. You know what I think you should do, though, right? Talk to him. I know you, and I can see you pouting even without the video on. I've known you all my life and I half understand you only half the time. I don't think that man stands a chance if you don't speak up.”

“Fine,” Leo groans. “I will give a note to the maid so she can give it to him. This is ridiculous! I'm sure this is all because I'm not all small and cute like Cody or whatever.”

“Leo, that is not fair—“

“I know! I know! It's just so...” he groans and closes both his hands into fists, unable to express his frustration in any other way. “I wonder what am I even doing here since I'm clearly a guest!”

“You have to be patient,” Adam says, softly. “In time, he'll get rid of some of his former husband's things, and his presence in the house will turn a little less overwhelming.”

“Oh but there's nothing left of Cody's stuff,” Leo sits up, cross-legged on the couch. “Not even a photograph. But it's even worse, if you ask me. If everything was still here, it'd be like if we were waiting for him to come home some day. Wishful thinking and all that. Instead, the house feels empty. Like you know there should be things here and they aren't. The finality of it is so heavy. Not only he's dead, but in case you forgot it, the house is there to remind you every step of the way. Can you see how impersonally elegant this house is? Yeah, that's because he's dead and all that made this house a home is now gone.”

“I'd appreciate it if you didn't speak about things you clearly don't know anything.” Blaine sounds perfectly calm and polite, but his voice barely hides a hint of the same anger Leo has been hearing in it for the past few days.

Leo hangs up instantly. “How long have you been standing there?"

"Long enough to learn that all the comforts you might think of and the freedom of doing whatever you want are not enough for you,” Blaine answers dryly as he takes off his coat and hangs it. “And that you use your time to be disrespectful.”

“I wasn't being disrespectful,” Leo says. “I was—“

“Complaining,” Blaine finishes for him. “I don't think I have seen you do anything else since you came here.”

“Can you blame me?”

“I'm doing just that.”

Leo shakes his head and throws himself down the couch as theatrically as he knows how. “You're unbelievable! You know what, whatever. I'm getting out of your way.”

Blaine watches him as he passes him by, marching straight to the door. “What do you want?”

Leo stops a foot out the door and one in. “What?”

“What do you want?” Blaine repeats. “I can't think of going on another week with you pouting like a small child, so tell me what you want. I'm listening.”

I want that you acknowledge my presence.

I want not to be married to someone who just _allows_ me to occupy a portion of his house.

I want to be wanted.

But he knows he needs to aim lower if he wants to get something, so he just blurts out the first thing on top of his head. “I want to have meals together.”

Blaine seems to think about it for a moment, then he nods. “Fine. Dine with me tonight.”

*

If Leo thought dining with Blaine would change something, he was clearly mistaken.

The man has asked that the dinner be served in the dining room, which is so big you could park a small plane in it. He's sitting at one end of the table and made Leo sit at the other, the farthest he could place him without sending him in another room. With an entire table between them, they might as well be eating dinner alone.

Leo doesn't give up, though. He got so far, he's not going to stop now. So, he tries his hardest to make conversation. This is not his greatest skill and surely he has no idea what Blaine's work is about or what the man does the whole day, but he _wants_ to know, he asks questions, he tells Blaine things that should make him want to ask something in return, but that doesn't happen. Blaine doesn't seem to care about him or about his day. He answers briefly to every question, barely looking up at him.

At some point, Leo just has enough. “You could at least pretend, you know?”

Blaine puts down his fork and knife and sighs. “What is going on now? You wanted to have dinner with me. We are having dinner.”

“And you'd clearly rather be alone!”

“I am very tired, Leonard,” Blaine sighs again.

Leo stands up, making sure the chair screeches as loud as possible. “I'm tired too! I didn't ask for any of this!”

“And I didn't ask for you!” Blaine shouts, slamming his hand on the table.

For a moment they are both holding their breath, bracing for impact while time seems to freeze mercifully on Blaine's last words. Leo can't hear anything but the echo they make in his head and he can feel nothing but the pain they caused. For being a stranger, Leo cares for him too much already, and that knowledge is devastating. 

Leo moves a second before Blaine does, right when the rest of the world starts moving too. He hears him calling his name while he stands up, but he doesn't stop nor he looks back. He doesn't want Blaine to see his tears. He has to keep something to himself, hasn't he?

*

At least an hour has passed when Leo hears the knock on the door. He is still on the bed where he threw himself in his fit of sadness. He suddenly realizes that he was so upset that he hasn't moved a muscle since then. His back hurts and his eyes too, he doesn't need to look at himself in a mirror to know they're red and puffy and he generally looks like a frog.

Another knock comes, a little harder than the first one. Leo wonders who could it be since the maids have this annoying habit of showing themselves in. “Leonard, it's me. I'm coming in.”

Virtually no time passes between his words and his first step inside. But this is his house, after all. Leo imagines he can't really prevent Blaine from entering any room he wants. He's surprised, though, when he sees that the man came bringing a gift, a piece of cake to be precise.

“I brought you the dessert,” Blaine says, putting it down on the nightstand. “I thought it would have been a pity for you to miss on Mrs. Appleby's apple pie. It's in her name after all, isn't it?” 

Blaine gives him a little smile and he can't help but smile back. “Is that really her name?”

“Indeed it is,” Blaine nods. “She told me she learned how to make it because of her name. She wanted to do it justice.”

They smile at each other again, more out of politeness than anything else, but then silence falls in the room again. Leo feels the weight of it and he really wished Blaine would go. 

“Listen, there is no excuse for what I said,” Blaine suddenly starts. “I didn't mean it.”

Leo had planned to act all offended. He had sworn to himself that if Blaine was ever going to come apologizing – something he didn't believe possible, to be honest – he was going to make him sweat it. But the truth is he has not strength left for it, and the man sounds sincere anyway. “I—I didn't ask for this. I didn't ask them to pair me with you or for your husband to die” He sighs softly, looking into his eyes and finding them sad, but calm. “I'm really sorry that it happened. It wasn't fair! But it's not fair that you treat me like this either! It is not my fault if we're here now. I don't even know if all this makes any sense at all! If a second Assignment does!”

“Oh, but I do.”

Leo frowns. “You believe there could be a mistake during the process? Isn't it supposed to be fail proof? You had your soulmate! How can you have another?”

Blaine sighs. “It is fail proof, Leo. My first wedding wasn't a mistake at all. Cody's death was just a terrible accident. And none of these things has anything to do with you being here now.”

“So, _I_ am the mistake?”

“No. I think a person can have more than just one good companion in his life and I trust the process of the Assignment to find the right one. But I'm still human and I'm grieving the loss of someone really precious to me. I am entitled to this grief,” Blaine says, and when he reaches out and strokes his hair, Leo leans in into his hand. It is the first time ever the man touches him and it feels nice. “You have to give me time, Leo. I promise you, it is going to work.”

“You could have told me,” Leo pouts a little this time, he feels like he deserves it.

“I wasn't ready to,” Blaine pulls him to himself and leaves a kiss on the top of his head. “I'm sorry, kiddo.”

Leo moves away from him, but only to grab the little cake on its little porcelain plate on the nightstand. “What about the cake? Are you ready to share some or is it too soon?”

Blaine bursts out in a laugh. “That I can do.”

Leo smiles, then, offering him a piece of cake.

He had his first step after all.


End file.
